Deadliest of Sins (20 page)

Thirty

For what seemed like
hours, Chase frantically searched through the house for Gudger's cell phone. He'd almost decided the cops had confiscated the thing when he found it wedged behind the sofa in the living room. Either the cops had forgotten about it, or they hadn't wanted it to begin with. Weak with relief, Chase ran to the kitchen to call Galloway. He couldn't stand the bloody-pissy stink in the living room and the cops hadn't torn up the kitchen quite as badly as the rest of the house. With a silent prayer that he was doing the right thing, he hopped up on the cabinet next to the sink and punched in Galloway's number. The phone rang once, twice, three times, then a deep voice answered crisply, with a single word.

“Galloway.”

“This is Charles Oliver Buchanan,” Chase replied, his voice coming out in a squeak. “Mary Crow gave me your card. She said to call you if I ever found out anything about my sister, Samantha.”

“Mary Crow?” Galloway now sounded even sterner, more serious. “What do you know about Mary Crow?”

“N-nothing,” Chase answered. “But I think my stepfather might.”

“Who's your stepfather?”

“
Ralph Gudger.” Chase tried to swallow. His throat felt like sandpaper. “I-I shot him this afternoon. But when the ambulance took him away, he was still alive.”

For a moment, he heard nothing; then Galloway spoke. “Are you the peach truck kid?”

“Yes sir.” Tears flooded his eyes. That seemed so long ago, he felt like some other boy had climbed in the back of that truck and ridden ninety miles, dizzy from the heady aroma of those ripe peaches. It couldn't have been him. “Mary Crow talked to Gudger on our front porch. Then Gudger got all weird. Then a big gorilla drove up in a black car, beat him up, and took him away. When he came back, he said they'd held his hand down in a pit of acid.” He struggled to keep his voice level, to keep from crying like a baby. “That's when he told me Mary Crow wouldn't be bothering anybody anymore. The men in the black car were going to take care of her. Today they were supposed to come get me and sell me for boy meat …”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I just told you!” Chase cried. “Gudger knows where my sister—”

“I get that part,” Galloway said. “But I also know you've got a bad rap in this department. If you're pulling my chain over something you've just dreamed up because you're scared, you need to get off my line now. I've got an officer missing.”

“I'm telling the truth!” said Chase. “I shot Gudger to make him tell. But he told me about Mary Crow way before that—”

“Why didn't you call before now?”

“He locked me in my room!”

“Did he say where Mary Crow was?” Galloway interrupted.

“No!” Chase replied, desperate to make the man understand. “But I bet he knows where she is. He knows where my sister is. At a motel, near Hubb—”

Suddenly, he heard a noise outside the kitchen window. It sounded like gravel popping on the driveway. Was it the men in the black car? Had they now come for him? He hopped off the counter and peeked outside the back door. A police car had rolled up, lights off, no siren. Chase held his breath. Was it the cop who'd almost spotted him in the tree? Had he come back for a second, more thorough search? Chase watched, ready to run, as the car door opened. A tall figure emerged, then reached for something in front seat. As he did, Chase saw his face. It was Gudger's old partner, Crump. He didn't look particularly mad, just sad somehow, as if he had some very bad news to tell someone.

“I gotta go,” Chase told the cop on the phone. “I think Gudger just died.”

“Hello?” Galloway turned away from the black Miata and pressed the cell phone hard against his ear. “Hello, kid? Did I lose you?” He heard only the silence of a disconnected call. Immediately, he punched the call-back number. The phone rang several times, then a gruff male voice came on the line. “This is Gudger. Leave a message.”

He didn't bother leaving a message. Instead he clicked off the phone and turned to Pike. “You hear anything from Dispatch about an officer getting shot?”

“There was some noise when you were in Gastonia, but it was some old cop. Retired guy.”

“Was the name Gudger?”

“Yeah, it sounded something like that.”

“Was he DOA?”

“Nah, I think they took him to the hospital. Domestic dispute.”

He tossed his car keys to Pike, who was waiting for the wrecker that would tow Mary Crow's car to impound. “I need your cruiser,” he told the officer.

“Where are you going now?” asked Pike

“County Hospital,” Galloway replied.

He got in Pike's cruiser, first checking with Dispatch to make sure both the boy and Pike had gotten their facts straight; the operator confirmed a 10-54 earlier, at the residence of Ralph Gudger, retired CCPD.

“What's the condition of the officer now?” asked Galloway.

“
He was in surgery,” came the reply. “Don't know anything more.”

“Shit,” said Galloway. He turned on the siren and light bar, then hauled back to Manley, shrieking down the two-lane, passing cars on the left, the right, and once through somebody's front yard. All the while the boy's words kept going through his head.
Some men held Gudger's hand in a pit of acid … he said they were going to take care of Mary Crow. I bet Gudger knows where she is, too!

“And if Gudger's still breathing, he's going to tell me exactly what he knows,” Galloway muttered as he pulled off Jackson Highway and headed down County Hospital Road.

The surgical unit was on the fifth floor. “Ralph Gudger's just been moved to room 511,” said a chubby blond nurse who wore a scrub outfit with Winnie the Poohs all over it. “He's just had some broth. He's doing well, but I'm afraid he can't have any visitors.”

“I'm not a visitor.” Galloway held up his badge. “I'm a cop.”

The nurse started sputtering something about security, but Galloway walked on down the hall. In room 511 lay a dark-haired man with his left leg elevated in a kind of sling, IV drips going into both arms. Galloway walked into the room, locked the door, then strode over to the bed.

“Gudger?” he asked.

The man opened swollen eyes and nodded. “Are you Dr. Wheeler?”

Galloway shook his head as he flipped open his ID case again, showing Gudger his gold detective badge. “I'm one of your own.”

“You arrest that little fuck who shot me?”

“Not yet,” said Galloway. “That little fuck says you know what happened to Mary Crow.”

Gudger licked dry, chapped lips. “He's a liar. Always has been. Now he's cost me my goddamn leg!”

“That's a shame.” Galloway looked closely at the man's bandaged knee, then with two fingers, thumped the wounded knee like a ripe melon. “That hurt?” he asked, grinning.

“Owwwww!” cried Gudger. “Yeah, it hurts. What are you, crazy?”

“Maybe,” said Galloway, easing up slightly on the pressure. “But for now, let's just say I'm a friend of Mary Crow.”

“I don't know who the fuck you're talking about,” said Gudger.

“Oh, I'm sure you remember.” Galloway lifted his hand above the bed. “Pretty girl … about this tall. Black hair, incredible smile. Special counsel for the governor.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Your stepson says otherwise.” Galloway grabbed Gudger's scalded left hand and wrenched one the fingers, hard. “He says you two had a nice long chat, on your front porch. Then you got the jitters and made some calls. He says that the same guys who fucked up your hand have Mary Crow. And he says you told them where to get her.”

Grimacing with pain, Gudger snatched his hand away. “He's a liar. I was changing a battery and dropped it. My fingers got burned trying to clean up the mess. It was an accident.”

“That's funny,” Galloway lied. “We've searched your house pretty good. Nobody saw any empty batteries lying on the garage floor. And nothing was etched with any acid.”

Gudger stared at him, his eyes hard beneath heavy brows. “Get the fuck out of here or I'm calling security.”

“No, you're not.” Galloway grabbed the call button and moved it well out of Gudger's reach. “You're not calling anybody, Gudger. And even if you did, it wouldn't matter. I've locked the door. And since you're the only patient in here and the nurse knows we're talking about official police business, it's going to be just me and you for quite a little while.”

Gudger tried to squirm away from Galloway, but the knee sling held him firm. “Look, asshole, you can't do this. I've got rights, you know.”

“So does Mary Crow. So does your little stepson.” Galloway leaned close, again squeezing the mushy spot that had once been Gudger's knee cap. “So did his sister, Samantha.”

“I'm telling you I don't know anything!” Gudger cried, his face growing as white as his pillowcase.

“You sure about that?” Galloway gave the knee cap another long squeeze; blood began to ooze through the bandage. “Gee, I hate to tear out these sutures.”

“Stop!” Gudger screamed, beads of sweat on his forehead. “I swear I never heard of the woman!”

“Okay.” Galloway shrugged. “Then you're of no use to me what-
soever.”

He removed his hand from Gudger's leg, then stepped over to the other side of the bed. He moved one of the IVs away from Gudger's grasp, then peered closely at the drip as he began to twist the valve on the intake line.

“What the fuck are you doing now?” Gudger wheezed, his eyes wide.

“I'm going to insert a bolus of air into this line,” Galloway said breezily, as if he were going to fluff Gudger's pillow. “My mother's a nurse, so I know all about IVs. All I do is cut off the saline, then with a syringe, inject some air into the line that goes in your vein. It'll take me a couple of syringes' worth, but soon an air bubble will hit your heart, then your lungs, then who knows where. You could die immediately. Or you could have a stroke, which means you could be paralyzed from the neck down and have some grumpy, underpaid orderly wiping your ass for the rest of your life. Or you could be a vegetable and not know another fucking thing until the day they pull your plug.” Galloway looked at Gudger's bandaged knee. “It's a shame, too. Somebody went to a lot of work saving that leg. Too bad you won't be needing it.”

Gudger heaved his torso upright, tried to grab Galloway with both arms, but again, the knee sling held him back. Galloway simply stepped aside as the top half of Gudger's body dangled over the side of the bed.

“It's not totally uncommon for older people to stroke out after surgery, anyway. You'll have a seizure, I'll race to the door to call a nurse. They'll try to revive you, but it won't work. And they certainly won't blame anything on me, a fellow brother in blue.”

Gudger managed to lift himself back on the pillow. “Who the fuck are you?” he whimpered, his eyes so wide Galloway could see the bloodshot sclera.

G
alloway looked at him as he began to turn off the drip. “A friend of Mary Crow.”

Gudger watched, chest heaving, as Galloway started twisting the little valve. He'd gotten it halfway closed when Gudger held up his hand. “Stop!” he gasped. “I'll tell you what I know.”

“Like where she is?” asked Galloway, not removing his hands from the IV.

“I'm not sure where she is,” Gudger gasped. “All I know is she sniffed around and got too close to an operation that runs out of the Tick Tock Motel. Near Hubbard Mountain Park.”

“Where's that?”

“Close to Charlotte.”

“What kind of operation is it?” asked Galloway.

“Part of it's prostitution,” said Gudger. “Part of it's something else.”

“Like what?”

Gudger swallowed, his Adam's apple coursing up and down his throat. “I don't know what you'd call it, but it's run by a bunch of Russians. They take the best girls—the pretty ones who haven't been fucked crazy—and sell them. You know, to one person, just for sex.”

“Who do they sell them to?”

“I don't know. You'll have to ask them.” He looked at Galloway and gave a soft, smirking chuckle. “But you'd better hurry. They turn their stock pretty fast, I understand.”

“You'd better not be shitting me, you son of a bitch,” whispered Galloway as he reopened the valve. “And Mary Crow had damn well better be there. 'Cause if she isn't, I'm coming back. And next time I'll make a bubble in your brain seem like a walk in the park.”

Thirty-One

Chase would have run,
except Crump knew he was inside. He'd seen him through the kitchen window, lifted his hand in greeting as he made his way to the back door. Chase had nowhere to go. He stood by the stove watching as the cop opened the door and stepped inside.

“Hey, boy.” Crump never called him by his name—just
boy
or
kid
. His wide mouth stretched in a thin line—Chase couldn't tell if he was mad or sad or just disgusted at having to drive out here.

“Gudger's dead, isn't he?” Chase was almost too scared to ask the question. Ever since he'd fired Cousin Petey's gun, he'd seen his life spool out first in a courtroom, then in prison, being bullied by men like Gudger for the rest of his life.

“No, but he's hurt pretty bad,” Crump replied, irritated.

Chase closed his eyes with relief. Again he'd been spared—he wasn't guilty of murder, at least not yet.

“Your mama sent me over here to get you,” said Crump.

“She did?” His last memory of his mother was early this morning, when she'd told him they were leaving Gudger, that she would come pick him up that afternoon. “Where is she?”

“At the hospital. She's crying real hard.” Crump put his hands on his equipment belt like an old-time gunslinger. “Shooting a cop's serious, kid.”

“I know.”

“You want to tell me why you did it?”

He stared at Crump's badge, wondering if he dared tell him the truth about Gudger and those men in the black car. It would be good to get it out that he hadn't just taken his gun and shot Gudger for the fun of it, but he doubted Crump would believe him. Crump had been Gudger's partner back during their duplex days, when Chase was calling 911 on the crackheads next door. He shook his head. “I'd rather tell my mother first.”

“Then let's get going,” Crump said, his gaze skittering around the kitchen, skipping from Chase to the bloody living room, then lingering on the clock over the stove, as if he were on some kind of time schedule. “She's been asking for you for a long time.”

This isn't right
, said a voice in Chase's head.
Mama wouldn't be crying over Gudger. She only cried over Daddy in her own bedroom, with the door shut. And she wouldn't be wanting me to come to the hospital—even when Daddy was dying she said hospitals were no place for children. And why wasn't Crump trying to arrest him, like those other cops?

Something was going on here—he just had to stall long enough to figure it out.

“I need to change my clothes,” said Chase. “Mama would be mad if I didn't wear nice clothes to the hospital.”

“Your clothes don't matter, boy. She said to bring you now.” He grabbed Chase's shoulder with a heavy hand and squeezed the same nerve that Gudger always squeezed. The calming claw, Gudger called it. “We need to get going.”

Crump marched him out the door. Chase walked obediently, knowing that the slightest veer in a different direction would bring such pain that tears would come to his eyes. Still, as Crump moved him toward the police car, Chase kept wondering what was going on. Could this be some plan of his mother's? To keep him out of jail and away from those other cops? Did she think he'd be safe as long as he was with Crump? There was no real reason not to trust Crump—until he'd applied the claw on his shoulder, he'd never said or done anything mean to Chase.

They walked toward the cruiser. As they neared the front fender, Chase moved slightly to the left, assuming Crump would want him in the passenger's seat. Instead, Crump's grip on his shoulder tightened.

“I've got to drop something off before I take you to your mother,” he said, opening the back door of the cruiser. “So I'm gonna let you ride in the meat locker.”

Crump's thin lips stretched in a grin that made Chase go cold inside. As the lanky cop held the door open, everything crystallized into a sharp little diamond of revelation. His mother hadn't sent Crump to get him. Those men in the black car had. Crump and Gudger had been partners for years. If Gudger had promised them fresh boy meat, then Crump was bound to deliver it.

“Get on in there, boy,” Crump said. “And don't look so scared … it'll be fun. I'll put the siren on and drive fast. People will think you're some big bad criminal.”

Crump's calming claw loosened on his shoulder as he put a practiced hand on the top of Chase's skull, pushing him head first into the back of the cruiser. When Chase got close enough to see the grid of the cage separating the front seat from the back, he made his move. He ducked down, put his arms on the backseat of the car, and kicked out backward with both feet. He connected with Crump's mid-
sec
tion—an instant later he heard a soft groan, as Crump's knees
buckled. He thrust himself feet-first out of the car. His chin hit the lower edge of the door frame as he belly-flopped onto the driveway.

“You crazy little bastard!” Crump yelled.

He scrambled under the car, pressing himself into the gravel. Watching from beneath the passenger side, he saw Crump's feet, then Crump's knees, then finally Crump's red and raging face. Crump thrust a long arm under the car and made a grab for his leg, but Chase was ready. He scampered from beneath the passenger side of the car and leapt to his feet, running as fast as he could.

“What the fuck's the matter with you?” he heard Crump call. “I'm just taking you to your mother.”

He wanted to call back over his shoulder and tell Crump he knew exactly where he was taking him, but he didn't dare waste the breath. Catching his jaw on the car frame had opened up a long gash beneath his chin. Blood gushed down his neck and onto his shirt with every stride he took.

He ran across the driveway, Crump's footsteps loud behind him. At first he headed back to the house, thinking he could grab Gudger's Taser, or even Gudger's gun. But the other cops had wrecked the house—it would take him hours to find any kind of weapon, and by then, Crump would most certainly be inside, breathing fire.
Forget the house,
he decided.
Just keep on running.
Crump was forty, maybe even fifty. Surely he could outrun an old man like that.

He took off across the side yard, heading for the maple tree. Maybe if he could gain some ground, he could climb up there again and wait Crump out in the highest branches. Risking a glance over his shoulder, his heart sank. For an old guy, Crump was fast. He was close and his long legs were getting him closer. Chase would never be able to jump to that first branch before Crump grabbed him.

Lowering his head, he pushed on past the tree, jumping over a little ditch in the yard that Gudger always had difficulty mowing. As he did so, the inside of his left arm brushed against something hard in the pocket of his jeans. He dropped his hand, dug down to figure out what it was. Gudger's cell phone! He must have stashed it there when Crump pulled up. If he could just get ahead of Crump long enough to call someone—but who would he call? Mary Crow was out, and he'd already hung up on that Galloway guy. That left either his mother or 911. 911, he decided quickly, blood still streaming from his chin. Better to be taken to jail by those three cops than be delivered as boy meat by Crump.

He ran for the shed. If he could beat Crump there in time to lock himself in, it might work. Crump might be able to run forever, but he couldn't; his breath was already coming in ragged gasps, and the front of his shirt was soaked with blood.

Clenching his fists, Chase dug his toes down into the earth and sprinted for the shed. He skidded through the still muddy ground around where the swimming pool had been and leapt over Gudger's pile of blue plastic shards. Twenty feet beyond that, he turned toward the shed. As he turned, he saw Crump slip in the same mud and fall forward, sliding into the stack of shards. His heart soared! Now was his chance!

He raced for the shed door and flung it open. Inside, Gudger's new tractor sat gleaming in the dim light, smelling of machine oil and gasoline. Chase dived inside, slamming the door behind him and jamming the key into the lock. His shaking fingers managed to turn it just as Crump flung himself against the other side of the door.

“
What's the matter with you, you little idiot?” Crump wheezed, wrenching the door knob. “I'm supposed to take you to the hospital!”

“I know where exactly you want to take me,” said Chase. “And it's no hospital!”

As Crump tried to force the door open, Chase hurried over and crouched down beneath the shelf where Gudger cleaned his guns. He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and with shaking fingers, punched in 911. He was waiting for the call to go through when the world exploded. He heard a great bang, then tiny bits of glass rained down like sleet on his head and shoulders. When he opened his eyes, he saw Crump standing in front of him, pointing his gun at his head. He took a step closer and kicked the phone from Chase's grasp, sending it clattering across the glass-strewn floor.

“What kind of bullshit call were you making this time, you little faggot?” Crump asked, his eyes burning with a dark fire. “Drug dealers on the front porch? Spacemen in the back yard? Or is it still how Gudger stole your sister?”

“It's still that.” Chase swallowed hard, mustering his courage. “Only now it's you, too.”

Crump shook his head. “You're dreaming, kid. I'm just here to take you to your mama.”

“Then why'd you try to put me in the back of your car, in the
meat
locker? And what was the important stop you had to make before we went to the hospital?”

Crump said, “Why don't you tell me, since you're such a clever little shit?”

“Because Gudger freaked out when Mary Crow showed up. He called some men, to warn them. Only they came and took Gudger away and dumped his hand in acid. Gudger told those people they could have me. He called me fresh boy meat.”

Crump sighted down the barrel of his gun. “So what do you reckon my part is in all this?”

“You're Gudger's partner,” Chase said as his chin began to quiver. “And you know exactly what happened to Sam.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Because why else would you be pointing a gun at me now?”

Crump studied him a moment, then he gave a mirthless smile. “I gotta hand it to you, boy. You're just too fucking smart for your own good.”

His whole body shaking, Chase put his head down on his knees. He couldn't look into that gun barrel anymore. Nor could he get past Crump and run anywhere. He was going to die—right here in Gudger's garage, next to his new green tractor. Chase thought of his mother and started to cry.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way, boy,” Crump said. “The easy way is we just go back to my cruiser and you let me take you to the men who are waiting for you. The hard way is I put a bullet in your head and dump you in a place where nobody will ever find you.”

A silence stretched between them. Chase wished he were brave, wished he knew how to respond to that—though he didn't know exactly what boy meat was, he knew dead. Dead was his father, stretched out in a pine box in their living room. Dead was Cousin Petey, stretched out in a fancier box at a funeral home. Dead could soon be him, a kid who'd just wanted to find his sister and wound up uncovering his stepfather's secret evil. Finally, he lifted his head and looked at Crump. “I don't know what to say.”

“I do.” A voice came from just inside the shed door. A woman's voice—high and delicate, but with steel in it, too. Crump turned. Chase peered around him to look—he gasped, amazed. His mother stood there, still in her work uniform, a shotgun pointed straight at Crump's heart. Behind her stood Dr. Knox, her boss from the nursing home.

“Drop the gun, Crump,” his mother ordered.

“Hey, Amy, I was just kidding around,” Crump began, his face suddenly the color of chalk.

“Do what she says, officer,” Dr. Knox said, his own pistol at the ready. “You don't corner a little boy in a garden shed and point a gun at his head.”

Crump just stood there, ashen-faced but still gripping his weapon. For an awful moment Chase thought he might shoot everybody, but finally, he lowered his gun, putting it gently on the hood of Gudger's tractor. His mother's eyes did not leave Crump's face once as Dr. Knox hurried forward to retrieve the weapon.

“Chase?” his mother said, her gaze still level on Crump. “Are you all right, sweetheart? That chin looks right bad.”

“I'm okay,” Chase croaked, relief coursing through his veins like warm honey. “It looks a lot worse than it is.”

“Then you come over here by me and Dr. Knox,” his mother said. “We heard everything Crump said. The police are on their way. Until they get here, we're going to find out exactly happened to your sister.”